No Wand to Fight With
by JazzMind
Summary: Voldemort is gone, defeated, kaput, but that doesn't mean that all is right in the worlds. One girl, her parents, and a new school are gong to duke it out this Fall. Not a Mary-Sue, SSHG. Please come in, I review back.
1. Muggles Flee

No Wand to Fight With  
  
A/N: I like writing, I just don't do it that often. I have finals next week. I should really not do this. Oh, and note; this isn't beta'ed, even by me. I'll do it later, if ever.  
  
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:Are there left-handed wands? Are there left-handed _wizards?_ And what the _heck_ do you wear to get on a train with people who can probably Transfigure anything they want into whatever they want it to be?:  
  
Leslin had already read her textbooks; she'd got them right after the letter came, and _that_ was at the beginning of the summer. And being invited to a private school for magic wasn't so routine in her family that she wouldn't want to know what she was heading for, now was it?  
  
Her parents, sedentary, both definitely the don't-disturb-my-routine type, had _not_ liked Diagon Alley. And that may have been why they got annoyed and dragged her home before she could get a wand.  
  
And she really, _really_ did not want to explain that to anybody at this school for Magick. Maybe she was being immature, but it was _embarrassing,_ that her parents were too scared of the wizarding world to accompany her back into it. They'd even fled the train station, which they both used to get to work and which they'd probably never look at with complete trust again.  
  
In any case, the good news was that she had "robes," a cauldron, quill and _lots_ of parchment, and all her textbooks. However, there had been some kind of book with wings, and there were twenty or so of them perched on the rafters, and _that,_ even more than Madame Malkin's, had driven them into quiet hysteria that had taken nearly a week to calm them out of. So, as usual saving the best for last, as she was wont to do, they had never gotten to the wand shop, which, from the talk of all the other "first- years," was the most amazing part of the whole thing. And _no_ one she had casually mentioned it to had ever heard of someone coming to Hogwarts without a wand.  
  
They had gone to Gringotts first, of course. :Maybe,: she thought, :maybe if they hadn't been presented with Goblins the absolutely _first_ thing, we could have made it in and out without that premature exit.: They'd been at least discreet about their panic; it wouldn't "do to frighten the child, after all, Richard," as she had heard late that night. There had been no screaming, no fainting. Just very white faces, and a hurried retreat through the pub into the "safe" street, where they could apparently no longer see the Leaky cauldron. _She_ could. Her parents had been holding tightly onto her hands, one each as they used to do when she was four or five. She hadn't proved herself so immature as to pull towards the pub yearningly as she wanted to. It was _Magic!_ :You don't turn away from magic when it presents itself.:  
  
That had been in "Hogwarts, A History," a quote by one of the survivors of the Final Battle against Lord Voldemort. Hermione granger, the friend of Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, had said it. "You don't turn away from magic when it presents itself. There are good parts to the magical world, and bad parts, but a wizard (Leslin capitalized Wizard in her own mind) or witch can live as a Muggle (that meant someone who couldn't do magic; like her parents) if they want to; if you don't learn how to do magic, living in the wizarding world would be embarrassing and hard. And I wanted the magic. Voldemort is gone now; its time to get started fixing things like House Elf rights." Leslin, needless to say, wanted to be just like Hermione, a powerful witch who everyone respected, but she rather thought that Hermione Granger's parents had never fled from a few paltry books in their life.  
  
Hogwarts could be seen through the front windows, if she strained. It was just like the pictures, down to the wind moving the pennants about the Quidditch pitch and the Whomping willow just coming into sight around the straight-to-the sky Astronomy tower, a defiance to sordid, dusty London normality.  
  
They couldn't kick her out for not having a wand. And even if they did, she would _sneak_ back in. No one was going to take the magic away from her, and they _better_ not try, because she was going to be a Slytherin just like Severus Snape, and Slythrins were powerful and got what they wanted.  
  
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Do you like the little ending tap? I'm a tremendous SSHG fan, and I just _had_ to mention both of them in this. In case you couldn't tell, _this_ means an emphasis on the word, just like italics except that italics make my account do strange upload errors so I'm sticking with what it likes until I figure out the HTML. I wrote this because to my knowledge, NO ONE has ever written this plotline before; the wars are over and life goes on. I mean, it's got to happen sometime, and these are _childerens' books._ The good guys will win. 


	2. Inside Hogwarts

Chapter 2 of No Wand to Fight With  
  
I review back, and I would appreciate all comments. I know that I wrote short chapters, but I write popcorn; something entertaining that isn't _meant_ to satiate.  
  
And I like Linkin Park.  
  
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Inside Hogwarts, mundane life went as it always does; interestingly, fascinatingly, and, around Severus Snape, snarkily.  
  
"Severus, you do know that you've become a teen idol figure?"  
  
"I know no such thing and I do not plan on learning it in the future. The mere suggestion is disgusting."  
  
"No, really, Severus. Our new crop of students -you know, the generation that was raised on the new version of Hogwarts; A History- sees you in quite an ...original light, as it were."  
  
"I haven't read it. Do I need to vivisect that Skeeter woman? Animagi have fascinatingly complex properties when diced. Hmm." He Accio'ed a book from the shelves behind him, "Transfiguration, Animagi, Green Pixies, And Uses In Potions Of The Aforementioned," and began flipping through it to a particularly graphic illustration. He pushed it across the table to her. "See? _This_ is the proper method for dealing with that woman."  
  
Hermione looked vaguely green for a moment before sighing. "You may have a point. Do you know what she _said_ about the Whomping Willow? There was something about a pixie... anyways." She tossed her sort-of-tamed hair in embarrassment. "You don't really need to read it. How's research going?"  
  
"Pixies?" his amusement grew as her flush crept out from her cheeks to her ears. "Maybe I _do_ need to read this ...new edition."  
  
: ...Sleep? Mm-hmm, _sleep._: "Uh." The flush extended down at least to her shoulders, he noted with amusement. This was almost as fun as pretending that the damn students weren't going to arrive in an hour. Maybe more.  
  
"Well, I should be off." He rose, bowed, and _almost_ made it out the door.  
  
"SEVERUS Snape! You _will_ get your lazy, good-for-naught hiney over here and clean up these books that you've scattered all over this nice, clean excuse for a desk that you use, or I will personally charm all of your socks to sing pop rock songs whenever you pout your good-for-nothing, lazy feet into one!"  
  
He turned, scowling. "Merlin, woman, you would think we were married. I'll _do_ it."  
  
"Next year, maybe." She softened. "Severus, you know how mad it drives you when you can't find something on the shelves. I need to go greet the students."  
  
He growled under his breath, but began picking up the books. "I don't see why _you_ greet the students. I could do it perfectly well."  
  
"Mm-hmm. Yes, Severus, they would run back onto the train screaming and not come back if they were presented with a prophecy with their name on it, but otherwise I'm sure you would do wonderfully. An example to caretakers everywhere."  
  
"I'm not a bloody caretaker, I'm a teacher."  
  
"You're Head of Slytherin house. You're a caretaker." She smiled and whipped out the door.  
  
He grumbled incoherently to himself and started replacing the books to the set of bookshelves that they both kept as reference near the Potions labs.  
  
None of which explained why he had a smile on his face as her flying hair disappeared after her out the door.  
  
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I am a SSHG fan, what can I say? Yeah, yeah, I'll quit with the pixies. If you want to understand the pixie references, I advise that you read the fourth chapter of The Boy Legolas, if you have the stomach for it. Dancing floor. 


	3. For the Nonce

No Wand to Fight With  
Chapter Three

"Welcome to Hogwarts. I am Professor Snape, Head of Slytherin House. You will follow me to the Hall. You will be Sorted. You will cause me endless amounts of trouble and be punished proportionally. Am I understood?" He sneered with disdain.

Many of the students marveled at his kindness. Hogwarts: A History had painted a much harsher picture of him than this. Several were pale, thinking of what kinds of torments lay in store for them. Several remembered other passages, and laid preliminary plans to seduce him.

He would have been nauseated to find the true depth of the hero-worship that that damned book had pointed in his direction. The luck had it that he hadn't read it, or the grubs would have been met by a roaring monster instead of a chill mentor.

A stool, and a hat. Neither surprised her; both were unexpected for several other students. She didn't disdain them for not reading it; the book cost money, after all. Just because she knew that books were better than food didn't mean that other people were as insightful.

"Ganymede, Leslin." The professor's disinterested voice rang the Hall.

Eek. Faces turned to her. She raised herself to the stool, donned the hat (and thrilled at this situation, where her heroes had sat! This hat had called them first to their stations.)

Girl, I would call you a passable Gryffindor, if I were blind, deaf, and dumb.

Why, thank you.

You do realize that your Head of House won't favor you.

I caught that.

So, Slytherin it is then. But… The Hat deliberated. You're not as tough as you need to be yet, girl. Ravenclaw could fill your dreams almost as well.

I can adapt.

Don't adapt too far. Don't look weak, girl.

"SLYTHERIN!"

Green banners waved for her. She sat, was shook, congratulated. Someone pressed a snap-cracker into her hand and pulled. Garter snakes flew in all directions. She grinned and shook the hand that was offered her. "I'm Shot. We've never yet got an ophidiophobic, but…"

The girl sitting next to him smacked his arm. "Don't mind him. Drunkard. All those big words. An utter inebriate, he is; Shot stands for shot glass, by the way. I'm Aires."

Shot downed whatever was in his glass… Leslin looked at the glass with suspicion. "Aires short for Inertia." The two glared at each other.

"Taylor, Rafael."

Leslin looked at the stool, seeing a tall boy heading for the hat, and Snape looking bored.

There was a long moment of silence… "RAVENCLAW!" The table that the Hat had said could almost fill her dreams erupted in cheers.

Later, in the dormitory, she recalled the Hat's words. "Don't look weak, girl." Tomorrow morning they'd receive their schedules. Sooner or later she'd need to produce her wand. The wand that she didn't have.

In the common room, Snape had said that they were welcome to come to him with problems which they could not solve themselves… was this such a problem? He had one hell of a fierce sneer.

"As your Head of House, when you have a problem which you cannot solve yourself, you are expected to come to me first. That does not include your Potions homework." Sneer. "While I have no hopes that any of you will be actual credits to this esteemed house for quite a while, you are expected to stand up to yourselves and behave with honor and guile." He frowned. "While you are at Hogwarts, I am your champion."

A that sentence, Leslin had wanted to hold her face in her hands and hiccup helplessly. She'd held as still as she could, as still as the other girls and boys facing their esteemed mentor in the green-themed common room.

He glared at each of them. "I am, for the nonce, on your side." He turned and strode from the room, cloak flaring behind him. Scared chatter broke out in his wake.

In the end, she decided to go down to the kitchens and ask the house elves what to do- she rather suspected that they could get her a wand. Hogwarts house elves were friendly and willing to help… and she could always tell her fellow Slytherins that she had demanded it of them, rather than asked. Not the coward's way out- the smart way out.

She wandered out of the common room, weaving around a group of older boys and a pile of books on a table. She assumed that that there was a person and a quill somewhere behind it.

Thank Merlin for Hogwarts: a History, the revised version. It included the location of the fruit-bowl portrait, and a description of what to expect beyond it.

The house elves recommended that she talk to her Head of House, and fed her hot chocolate and cookies. Not a one of them was anything like Dobby.

There was, she supposed, nothing for it. Snape's office was three corridors down from the Slytherin common room, and that was where she went.

She rapped twice at the door, and took a step back.

She really couldn't solve this one herself, beyond stealing someone else's. Which might be expected of her… Crap.

A/N: I… like words. I use words, and I read a lot. In casual conversation and casual writing, I use words that are not usually found in casual conversation. Today I've chosen to not edit them out. Definitions, if you are hebetudinous enough to not look them up online (two seconds, I assure you) or to simply not know them in the first place… well, I give definitions.

For the nonce: for the moment, for the occasion. (Nonce- the present or particular occasion)

Ophidiophobia- Fear of snakes. Duh.


End file.
